A Door You Never Noticed Before

[Fraze]

You saw it first on your morning walk to school. Halfway down an alley, directly across from an ethnic restaurant of questionable authenticity and cleanliness. It was a heavy metal door with just a smear of rust on one corner, on the otherwise blank side of a red brick building. You had never seen it before, but it must always have been there so you figured you had just never looked very closely before now.

You saw it again during your lunch break, as you walked to the food court of the mall by your school. Down a corridor that you knew for a fact only led to the bathrooms. It was a plain white door, a bit smudged with something, situated across from the handicapped restroom. You had the strangest feeling that it was the same door as the one you had seen earlier...or at least, that it led to the same place.

You saw it for the third time in the evening, dressed in your Halloween costume, as you walked across the park dividing the neighborhood you had just finished up from the neighborhood you had yet to get to. This time it was wooden planks nailed together with screwed-in hinges, set straight onto the side of a grassy hill. A padlock held it shut, but with a second glance you realized the padlock wasn't actually locked shut. You were now certain, somehow, that this door was connected to the other two.

Carefully, cautiously, you reach for the padlock and lift it off the latch. You pull the door open, expecting to see some sort of dark musty closet covered in cobwebs...

Cinnamon. It smells like cinnamon. And it is dark, but it isn't musty and there were no cobwebs. In the dim evening light, you can make out a crisscrossing maze of pipes along the walls, covering stone tiles and rough brickwork, all above a soft carpet with comfortable furniture.

It's such a strange and jarring sight that you don't notice the room is much too large to fit underneath the hill. Seeing no immediate danger, you step inside, and the door shuts softly behind you.

As your eyes adjust to the dimness, you realize there's actually plenty of light to see by. Two more doors lead off from this room, one to each side. One is heavy and metal with a smear of rust on one corner; the other is plan and white, and a bit smudged with something. There are comfy, ornately decorated sofas and armchairs chairs all around the edges of the room, which is the size of a large living room. Toward the center of the room is a broad, flat coffee table with a single book lying open on it.

[Coaster]

Vampire-Wizardess!Coaster marvels at the bigger-on-the-inside room for a bit (though is also slightly concerned with the door shutting behind her), but seeing nobody around yet, she gets her phone camera out and takes a few pictures of the book's open pages (and the few adjacent on either side), and reads it while she goes towards the smudged-white door, then opens it up a crack, peeking through.

[Fraze]

Coaster
The open pages of the book read simply, "You may tear off one of the other pages of this book and then leave through the door you entered to receive a treat. Or you may leave this book intact and choose a different door, to uncover the mysteries within. Be confident and forthright in the path you choose."

Sure enough, the other pages of the book are all perforated near the spine. Each has a colorful design resembling an old-timey circus flyer in style. The designs depict things like a lighthouse with piles of candy visible through its windows, a palm tree hanging on a string like a pinata over a cliff, and a ring of stones with glowing blue lines spiraling outward from the circle and a pile of candies in the center.

Nothing is visible through the door, but you catch a slight whiff of pine needles and hear a faint groaning, metallic hum.

[Coaster]

Well, it's Halloween, what's the worst that could happen?

Vampire-Wizardess!Coaster turns on her phone flashlight because it seems pretty dark, then kicks the door open and jumps inside to the oddly pine-scented room.

[June Scarlet]

A girl who looked like a journalist straight out of a 1940s movie made a beeline straight for the book. She loved to read so much it was nearly a compulsion. She picked it up, and settled into one of the more comfortable looking chairs, reading what it had to say.

[Fraze]

Coaster
It's still plenty light enough to see in the new room, which makes you wonder why it was so dark before. This room looks quite similar to the last one, and for a panicked moment you wonder if you got yourself into one of those video game levels where you keep getting sent to the same room over and over until you figure out the exact series of doors to go through to get out. But then you notice some differences: the walls have wood panels instead of stone and masonry, the carpet is a slightly different color, and the furniture is of a more modern style.

Also you're on the ceiling.

Looking up, you see the room laid out above you. And there, again, is the coffee table with an open book. On the ceiling (where you're standing) is a stepladder. Seeing what you're meant to do, you move it to the coffee table, climb up, and take the book.

"Your choice is the same as before," it reads. "Take one of the other pages from this book and return the way you came to receive a treat, or continue on to uncover further mysteries. Be wise and perceptive in the path you choose."

Once again, the rest of the book is full of coupons. The images are similar to those in the previous book, but now they're in the style of old propaganda posters. And sure enough, the other two doors are still there, above you like everything else. It appears as though you can get to them by moving the ladder.

June Scarlet
Only one page of the book has text. The rest of the pages are filled with coupons in a wide array of designs and with unusual imagery. You flip through, curious as to what they might all mean. ((See here.))

[June Scarlet]

Fraze
Deciding not to push her luck, she selected one of the pages of the book at random, and came out the way she came.

[Coaster]

Vampire-Wizardess!Coaster is intrigued and excited for this new adventure! She grabs the ladder and, this time, tries going through the rusty metal door!

[Gelquie]

A person clad in a white sheet as part of her ghost costume, additionally clad with fuzzy pink chains that did not jangle, felt apprehensive as she stepped into the door. Looking at the book on the table, however, they feel slightly eased as it seems innocent enough. However, things are not always as they seem.

But this ghost has a penchant for curiosity and exploration. Looking between the doors, they take time consider before deciding that perhaps they should go for the more ominous one in case the other path is a trick. And so they open up the heavy metal rusty door, peering inside to see what lies before her and going in if it appears safe.

[Fraze]

June Scarlet
When you get back outside, you look down again at the paper you took. "Thank you for participating!" it says. You don't remember what design it had when you took it, but it definitely didn't say that before. You feel a brief gust of wind, pleasantly warm (which is unusual for this time of year) and for a moment the air almost seemed to glow faintly. At your feet you find a small cloth sachet; opening it up, you see it's full of sugar stars.

Coaster
You find yourself at the top of a staircase as you enter the next room - understandable, since you did have to climb up to get to that last door. This room doesn't smell like much of anything, and the humming sound from the previous room is gone. You would like to do a survey of this room, but that's a bit difficult because of all the obstacles that are in the way. Ahead of you are towers of bricks from above and below, rows of spikes along the floor, ceiling, and walls (they don't look that sharp, but still not very comfortable if you run into them), walls to climb over or under, large boxes and other objects hanging down, trapdoors on the floor and ceiling (maybe they'll drop things on you, you wonder?)...and that's just what you can see! This room is long and narrow, like a hallway, and on the far side you can just make out a single door. Next to the door is a small table, and you think you know what's sitting open on it.

Gelquie
A warm rush of steam greets you as you open the door. It's sharply aromatic, smelling like something pungent that you can almost-but-not-quite recognize. Seeing nothing immediately wrong, you set one foot in, and then the other. The floor is soft, and looking down you realize it's actually soil.

You do a tour of this room. It's about the same size as the previous one, with plasticy walls like a toolshed. You can't see the ceiling through the steam. There are two doors in this room in addition to the one you entered through: one plain white door, and one nailed-together wooden door like the one you first came in through. Neither one opens. In front of each door is a lidded box, like a drop box at a receptionist's desk, with a label saying "DEPOSIT."

In the center of the room, you find a table with another book like the one you saw earlier. It has the same message as the one in the first room, along with similar coupons in a style resembling modern-day infographics. Also on the table are a stack of blank papers and a selection of pens and pencils.

[Coaster]

Vampire-Wizardess!Coaster is significantly intimidated by all the sharp and/or heavy implements. However, seeing as it's Halloween and death (well, permanent death at least) would be quite unsportsmanlike of a house, she decides to scrunch up her face a bit in order to try her luck with her new BAT FORM ability!

Oct 30, 2016 18:59:01 GMT -5 a couple talking spirit walls said:

(You've gained the ability to turn into a bat (or back to human) at will!)

So now that she's in her smaller and adorably fuzzy alternate form, hopefully she can get a natural 20 or whatever the term is, because she has nooo idea how skill checks are supposed to work or if they even apply here. Regardless, blind as the form makes her, Coasterbat does her best to squeeze between the safest-seeming gaps as far as her echolocation can tell.

[Gelquie]

The ghost looks around the room in awe, though they take a moment to cover their nose at the pungent smell until they grow used to it. The room otherwise looked pretty neat (and the steam explained the rust on the door). But the other two doors wouldn't open, so unless she could find a way through, this was a dead end. And although she was dressed as a ghost, she was not, in fact, incorporeal.

Perhaps the deposit boxes have something to do with it, the ghost thought. Perhaps there's something magical about them. Perhaps she should just drop something in a box and see what happens. But what to write on the paper? "Let me in please?"

...It's a start. They kneel down by the table and take up one of the blank pieces of paper and a pen before writing down a quick message.

I'm a stranger who wandered into your house and am curious about it. I mean no harm. May I please come in?

With the message written, they slipped it into the deposit box for the wooden nailed door, hoping for the best. If it doesn't work, well, maybe she could try slipping a coupon into the deposit box just to see what happens.

[Fraze]

Coaster
1-20
Taking to the skies with your new wings, you do your best to navigate the obstacle course. You bump yourself into a wall at one point, and collide with hanging objects a few times, but you nonetheless do very well considering the amount of practice you've had. You do, however, end up getting turned around and going back the way you came at one point, but once you realize your mistake you already know the route well enough to avoid any more problems. After about ten minutes, you make it to the far end of the room and return to your human form.

You look at the book. The coupons are now in a lovely, swirly art nouveau style. The message in the book reads, "Thank you for your participation! Your choices and reactions have been logged and will be used to refine the experience. Before you leave through this door, please take a page from this book as our thanks to you."


Gelquie
Nothing happens for a moment, but then you hear a humming noise coming from the other side of the door. It grows louder and louder until it's the volume of a crowded restaurant, then fades away again. You hear the door click as though a lock has opened, and sure enough, it pulls open easily.

The next room is clear of steam and the smell of whatever-it-is is gone. It looks like a discotheque with the overhead lights on: fluorescent neon lights snake across the walls, and tiles on the floor blink on and off in bright colors, but other lights from some other source illuminate the room well enough to see clearly. Also most of the room is filled with a human-sized maze. There's only one entrance, and the corridors look to be wide enough to walk through, but not much more than that. The walls of the maze don't reach up to the ceiling, but they look to be about twice as tall as you are.

On one side of the door you just came through are ladder rungs that run straight up the wall to the ceiling. Climbing up, you can see that on the far side of the room (it's about the same size as the others) is a single door and a book on a small table. On the other side of the door you came through is a long rope anchored at one end to the wall.

[Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff)]

With a futile attempt to calm down the very terrified horde of puppies at her ankles, Queen!Cassie ignores the book completely and goes with what looks familiar--despite the fact that said familiar thing resembles a certain door of a certain Sanatorium--and pushes it open with all her might. The puppies, despite being incorporeal, do their best to push the door open, too.

[Gelquie]

The ghost shields their eyes from the light, blinking as they get used to it. They take a moment to examine the rope and give it a yank to see if it gives slack or does something spcial.

If it doesn't the ghost goes up the ladder and tries to see if she can walk atop the walls of the maze to get to the other side.
If not, she examines the route of the maze, attempts to memorize it, then tries to follow the path to the other side.